Fevered Garage-Building
It’s been a little while in between postings, but for the past week, I’ve been fighting this (as yet) unknown virus. It hit me pretty hard, all at once, two Sundays ago. We were working on waterproofing the garage, and while I was cleaning up, I was struck with the shakes. I was running a fever of 39.5. I kept running a fever for the next 3 days; it would go down a bit, then come back up at night. By last Thurs., it had switched to a nagging chest cough and some serious headaches (and sweating like mad). I went to the walk-in clinic at Westmount and Victoria, and the cavalier doctor paid little or no attention to my description of the symptoms, but instantly assumed my problem was Mono (Mono??), and sent me off for a blood test. After passing out in the lab, and being rushed to a back room bed, they got a sample and sent me home — driving myself home, that is. Way to go — let the guy with extreme vertigo and a fever drive himself home. Test result? Not Mono. Well, thanks for your time, folks. No wonder I don’t like/trust doctors. R thinks it would be cool if I came down with something trendy and topical, like West Nile Virus (my suggestion), or Ebola (her’s, strangely).
So, I’ve become more and more functional as the week passed, so much so, that I’m now able to get a full and restful night’s sleep. I still haven’t much of an appetite, and I’m having problems drinking coffee. I’m currently sitting in 1842 with a double espresso, but I’m not very interested in it.
The garage is getting underway, and we’re making some good progress on it. We’ve laid down some concrete waterproofing paint on the walls and floor, I’ve put in some pressure-treated furring strips around the perimeter, and we finished laying the subflooring yesterday. It’s really fun to be in there now, and I can imagine how much warmer it would be in the winter with an insulated floor. In another week or two, I’ll start tacking up the walls, and putting some polystyrene insulation on them. We scoped out prices on a new door and a casement window for the back — both reasonable, both would take two weeks to deliver. Once all that’s done, we can probably rest for a while, and then work on insulating the roof — maybe putting in those skylights.
We’re still trying to figure out about the front garage door: We managed to get some prices on insulated sectionals and roll-ups (non insulated, unfortunately), and they seem promising. However, we’re still leaning toward the carriage door concept, possibly with a polystyrene core to give it an R5 value, and some resistance to the cold.
Anyway, it’s been a pretty good feeling, having been able to finally get some work done on my big summer project. As long as the money holds out, we should have a good, insulated workspace for the winter.